Topic: Units of Study

At this point in the year, it’s important to take stock of how your students are progressing toward independence and whether it would be helpful to shine a light on this all-important focus.

Supporting independence and helping students to become true, life-long writers also takes a certain kind of flexibility and willingness on teachers' parts to let go of the reins.

The TCRWP phonics team has been observing and collecting data as teachers have gotten the phonics units off and going. This feedback will inform the ongoing phonics work, including the development of the second grade series.

Empowerment comes from having a clear vision of the work that needs to be done, and from having a sense of autonomy in one’s process. It is from this thoughtful balance between shared goal and a menu of options that smart decisions can come.

Reading is a process that is internal, and where the problems lie can seem difficult to pinpoint. Happily, though, for many young readers, once they get focused help working through stuck points, their progress seems to skyrocket.

when a teaching community comes together in a shared study of a topic, they become a community of learners. They become more open to not having all of the answers, and to letting go of old ways of thinking.

Most reading workshop experts suggest that students spend no more than 10% of their reading time writing about reading. During the other 90% of reading time, students should be reading, engrossed in books they can read with a high level of accuracy in order to achieve the kind of reading volume that leads to maximum growth.

Lucy Calkins and her TCRWP coauthors recently sat down and answered some frequently asked questions about this essential series. Read the excerpts below and follow the link to view the full interviews.

Writing can be terrifying: a blank page holds the potential of failure. Writing can be difficult: a pen can presents challenge with letter formation and grip. Writing can be intrusive, especially when the expected topic is one’s life.

At this week’s TCRWP Twitter chat, Lizzie Petkanics and Kristi Guinness will lead a discussion on the management, functionality and benefits of helping your readers to build a richer sticky note practice.

At this week’s TCRWP Twitter chat, staff developers Mike Ochs and Celena Larkey will lead a discussion on the place of vocabulary and word study in and out of workshop. This duo is sure to bring a wide range of expertise to the chat.

It may seem a paradox that consistency breeds creativity. It seems that creativity would stem from the new, the original, the constantly changing. But often, underpinning creative endeavors is predictability and order.

Workshop has a predicable routine, and predictable tools, and predicable expectations, students are freed up from having to guess what is expected of them day after day. They are not stymied by waiting for instructions. Instead, they know how workshop will go, and they know what is expected of them

Monday, August 27 through Thursday, August 30 the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project will host their annual August Twitter festival, holding multiple chats each night. This year’s topic: Phonics!

Show and Tell is designed to come directly after kindergarten unit one, Launching the Writing Workshop. It extends the work started in unit one, and supports young writers in taking risks with invented spelling.

The final moments of summer break are upon us, and even for some, these moments are over and another school year is underway. The cusp of a new year can be an invaluable time to pause and consciously call up data and observations from last year as you plan for the year to come

This week, thousands of educators are gathering with The Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College at Columbia University to learn, to think, and to share on the topic of the Teaching of Reading.

Today on a very special podcast, Heinemann author and lead staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Cornelius Minor sits down to interview NYTimes Best Selling author Kwame Alexander.